A Greener View by Jeff Rugg

Q: First of all, thanks for an extremely informative website at greenerview.com. I wish our landscaper had been as knowledgeable and informative.

My core problem is dealing with an auto-fill that was installed against my wishes. It has been several years, so it's no use to contact the landscaper. The device never worked properly. We used to have to wedge in a stick to prop the float up and prevent the water from running constantly. Now, even that doesn't work.

I have to turn off the water to the whole sprinkler system or the water will run endlessly into the pond. I have a lot of other maintenance issues (including a leak) that I'm trying to address, but I really need to figure out how to disconnect this auto-fill device first. Any advice?

A: I can think of a couple of possible places to turn off this feature. With the water supply turned off, you might be able to unscrew the float valve and replace it with a screw cap. If it was not screwed in, you might have to cut it off and replace it with a glued cap. A plumbing or irrigation store should have the right parts.

You could also follow the pipe out of the skimmer. Cut it off and glue on a cap anywhere along the line back to the irrigation system. Theoretically, the auto-fill pipe may have been added to the system in an irrigation junction box where it would be easy to cap off.

Some float valves are adjustable — maybe it just needs to be adjusted. Possibly all you need to do is replace the rubber o-ring or valve seat to get it to stop leaking.

It is good to have a small trickle of water running into a pond to replace water lost to evaporation. This is better than replacing it all at once, which is more stressful to the fish and other organisms when the water temperature and chemistry changes faster. At the same time, it is better to do occasional water changes of 20 percent to 30 percent to replace more water than the trickle does.

 

Q: I would like to use a soaker hose to water my flower bed. The water would come from a 274-gallon rain barrel. Is this feasible?

A: Soaker hoses are designed to leak when the water is under pressure from the water system. Simply elevating the rain barrel will probably not create enough water pressure to work. Using a submersible pump might be effective, but most small ones wouldn't have enough pressure to work; a large one runs all the time, which uses electricity.

There are drip irrigation systems that distribute the water with a large pipe (about a half inch in diameter), and then small diameter pipes with tiny nozzles on the ends to get the water to each plant.

They are less dependent on high water pressure, but will take some experimenting. The pump could be set up on a timer to run only for a few minutes at a time; therefore, the water soaks into the soil and doesn't just run off. A low water shut-off switch, similar to a sump pump switch, would turn the pump off when the water in the barrel is too low.

 

Q: I have a few questions about French drains. I could have two, one each on the north and south side of my house, but each drain will measure only 60 feet long. The drains would end at a ditch, which occasionally floods higher than the drain lines. I was thinking of ending the drains into a drywell instead.

Since the topsoil here is gumbo with clay beneath, will a dry well or French drain work? If so, how large would you recommend? What would your suggestion be for the drains, rocks wrapped in fabric, or a drain-pipe wrapped in fabric set in rocks?

A: In general, I don't believe in taking an open system, like a roof gutter, and putting it into an underground closed system. This design will become clogged, making it difficult to clean out.

If you have water that you want to move from the house to the ditch and you can't do it above ground by shaping the land, you can put it underground. First, let's talk about the above ground system. A shallow gully shape is called a swale. The swale can have occasional wider and deeper areas that will hold water for a while, allowing wetland and shoreline plants to survive. This is called a rain garden — it slows the water from reaching the ditch and allows the water to sink into the ground and replenish the ground water. It slowly sinks into gumbo and clay soils; however, if they are compacted, it may not soak in at all.

Putting the same water into a drain-pipe moves the water to the ditch quickly. This gets rid of the problem water on your property, but it can create flooding down stream. The underground water in a French drain moves toward the ditch slowly, permitting some of the water to submerge into the ground, if the clay and gumbo allow.

French drains move water faster than it normally flows underground because of the open spaces between the rocks or within the pipe. If I have to have water moving underground, I prefer it in a pipe that is wrapped and surrounded with rocks in a cloth-lined trench. I don't want any soil getting into the pipe.

In your situation, I don't think the drywell will hold very much water, and what it does hold will not drain well. Because of the clay soil, I don't believe the French drain will bring the water into the soil. I would move the water in a swale with rain garden areas.

E-mail questions to Jeff Rugg, Kendall County unit educator, University of

Illinois Extension at jrugg@uiuc.edu. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.